you scout the road ahead
by wild wolf free17
Summary: When Bucky falls from the train, he doesn't get found by anybody. He wanders away under his own power because he's a werewolf.
1. Chapter 1

Title: you scout the road ahead and I will watch your back

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Richard Siken

Warnings: slight AU to a flashback scene in WS, both because I can't quite remember all the lines and because _werewolves; _canon character death; grief

Pairings: barely pre-Steve/Bucky

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 410

Point of view: third

Prompt: MCU, any/any, sometimes any just wants a cuddle

* * *

><p>Wolves are tactile; Steve's figured out, over the years, that Bucky really likes touching, likes flopping down real close, or leaning in to share warmth, or letting their hands brush across the table. It's not romantic, really, just a pack thing. Bucky's mom does it, too, though his sisters don't, really, 'cause they're human.<p>

Bucky's mom. Steve squeezes his eyes shut, clenching his hands into fists, and tries with all his might not to cry. It's been a long walk back to the apartment, and he can't – Ma isn't there anymore. And he wants, with everything in him, to crawl into her lap, to be little enough for her arms to go all the way around him, for her to hum a lullaby and call him her _baby boy_, but Ma –

Ma's gone. She's _gone._

"Steve!"

He pauses at the foot of the stairs, head hanging down. Of course Bucky's caught up to him; probably didn't even take a cab or borrow his parents' car. Wolves can move fast, even if they're not shifted.

"Please, Bucky," he says tiredly. "I just want to be alone."

Bucky just looks at him. "Do you really?" he asks softly, not stopping till he's next to Steve, close enough that Steve can hear him breathing.

Steve feels the sob building and he tries so hard to keep it down, but Bucky reaches out to grab his shoulder. "I'm with you to the end, Stevie," he says. "You don't gotta be alone."

Steve nods, biting down on his lip to keep the sobs from overwhelming him, and then he follows Bucky up the stairs.

It's a tiny little apartment, barely big enough for two people, but Ma's gone. Steve's not sure he can keep the place, not on his meager salary, and not with all the memories. He doesn't want to do anything except sleep, even if it is the middle of the day, and Bucky just stays out of his way, watching him as Steve decides what to do.

He buried his mother today. He's barely eighteen and he's alone –

He finally sags down on the bed, head in his hands, and lets the sobs out. Bucky whines and shifts, coming over to wrap around him, and he just cries into Bucky's fur.

In the morning, he wakes up to Bucky holding him, and he watches Bucky's face until Bucky wakes up, too. "'til the end?" he asks.

Bucky nods. "And even after."


	2. Chapter 2

Title: you scout the road ahead and I will watch your back

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Richard Siken

Warnings: AU during The First Avenger; talk of torture/death

Pairings: Steve/Bucky

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 1010

Point of view: third

* * *

><p>There are three other shifters in Hydra's factory: two foxes and a wolf. The foxes are both British and Bucky's never anywhere near them, but he comes to the wolf's defense once, when one of the Hydra goons goes after him for some stupid offense. (He thanked Jesus and all the saints that none of the Hydra goons are shifters of any kind.)<p>

He and the other wolf are both hit with one of the new-fangled Hydra weapons, stuff Bucky's never seen the likes of anywhere else, and Bucky wakes up alone in the isolation ward. No one's ever come back from it. He can feel the wolf whimpering in his mind, and he knows that if he shifted, the restraints wouldn't hold him anymore.

But he can't shift. He tries for days and it never works. He hears the other wolf scream and die, and they never asks questions, the ratty little doctor and his men, they never ask any questions, they just cut him and burn him and inject him over and over and over again, it burns, it burns all the way through, and he can hold in the howl but not the begging, but it never stops. He tries to hide with the wolf, but the ratty doctor drags him back, and tells Bucky that he's the most promising, the only one to survive, and _such plans we have for you, soldier, such plans!_

He hears Steve before he smells or sees him. He's pretty sure he's hallucinating (wouldn't be the first Steve to come to his rescue) but then Steve is unstrapping him, helping him sit up, and Bucky leans in, rests his cheek against Steve's for just a moment, just to be sure. The hallucination hadn't smelled at all. Steve's hands are strong on Bucky's back, his heartbeat steady and sure, and Bucky exhales. Steve is so big, so _warm,_ what the fuck is he doing here?

Steve looks around, still holding Bucky up, but "There's no one else here," Bucky says bleakly.

Steve nods quickly, herding Bucky towards the exit; Bucky flinches at the first explosion but none of the rest. Bucky knows that he should barely be conscious, but the longer he's up, the better he feels, and he peppers Steve with questions, using what he knows of the factory to guide their way.

He smells the ratty doctor before they turn the corner, and he can't help the flinch. Steve glances at him then towards the two men – the ratty doctor and another that doesn't smell right at all. He grabs for Steve's arm as Steve steps in front of him, and then he and the cold man are trading quips, and then the guy rips _his fucking face off_ and Bucky reconsiders his stance that the whole thing isn't a hallucination.

The ratty doctor and the red man vanish; Steve starts herding Bucky just a little more frantically, until they have to cross a chasm on a narrow, failing beam. He lunges forward, feeling the wolf stretch a little in the back of his mind, and he definitely snarls when Steve tells him, "Go, get out of here!"

"No!" he shouts back, _angry_ that Steve would dare ask that of him. "Not without you!" He starts looking around for something, anything, but then Steve is jumping, and there's no way he can make it –

Steve almost pulls them both down into the fire when Bucky grabs his arm, but there is no way in hell that Bucky is ever letting his stupid punk ass die, so they both end up on the ground, tangled in each other. They're allowed one moment of respite before Steve says, "We've gotta get out of here," standing and dragging Bucky up with him.

Outside, it's chaos. Steve does his best to get everyone's attention, but it's not until the last Hydra goon is dead that anyone starts calming down, and nobody's really able to focus until the facility finishes falling in. It's a long night. Bucky spends it on Steve's heels, except for the little while he takes to track down the foxes. One of them's got a wound from Hydra's tech that's not healing right, and he's whimpering on the ground, curled up with the other. Bucky sits with them until he goes; by then, Steve's found him again, and he stands guard.

The fox carries his kin to the mass grave dug for everyone who didn't make it, and then he stays near Bucky all the way back to camp. Hydra's dead, they leave for the crows.

Most of the men go home due to shellshock and their superiors' compassion (or they're simply too injured to stay), but a few stay on. Steve wants to form a team, so Bucky directs him to a few stand-outs, men he'd actually been caged with before he caught the ratty doctor's attention. They're good men, and definitely Steve's kind of crazy.

Bucky has never felt better in his life. He knows Hydra did something to him; that ratty doctor _(Zola,_ the wolf growls because they know his name now, and they have his scent) was too excited for the extra strength, the slightly stronger endurance, the speed and stealth and sight – whatever they gave Steve, Bucky's got some too, added to his already-better-than-human abilities due to the wolf.

He's actually glad, because that means he's better at watching Steve's back.

The Howling Commandos are good men, but Bucky keeps the wolf from them. He's pretty sure Jones knows something, though, from the way he watches Bucky and comments a few times on how he's never met someone with such good hearing. But he never says anything else.

But Bucky's been hiding the wolf his whole life, and while he thinks of the Commandos, Jones and Dugan and Dernier and Morita and Falsworth, as pack – maybe, in time, he'd have told them.

But then they're going after Zola (the wolf howls, panting for blood) and Bucky picks up Steve's shield because Steve is down, and he is falling –


	3. Chapter 3

Title: you scout the road ahead and I will watch your back

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Richard Siken

Warnings: AU during The First Avenger

Pairings: Steve/Bucky

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 1635

Point of view: third

Prompt: Any non-werewolf fandom, any, werewolf!AU.

* * *

><p>He shifts right before he hits the icy river, more out of last-minute desperation than any actual thought. But the wolf knows how to swim, and the wolf isn't injured or tired, and the wolf's drive is to live over anything else. The wolf drags himself onto the riverbank and rests for a moment, and then the wolf gets up and trudges away.<p>

(In a month, the Russians will pass this way, searching for something they do not find.)

The wolf wanders for a long time, the man sleeping within, until he is mostly skin and bones, but then spring comes. Spring comes and he feels his bones thaw, and the man slowly wakes, and he begins to remember -

He shifts back to the man and the first thing he does is bathe. His left arm aches a little -_train, howling wind, **_Bucky _**_- but he is not injured. He pickpockets a dozen people, gathering up enough to buy lunch at a little café, and the people speak French, so he does, too, and he is charming, flirting with pretty French girls and older French women, and then he sees the headline of an old newspaper: CAPTAIN AMERICA DEAD.

Captain America. _Captain America._

_Steve_.

He leaves the café in a daze, and the wolf is whimpering in his mind, so he returns to the countryside and then to the woods, and he lets the wolf out, the man hiding away again in his grief.

It is in the heat of summer that he decides to find out what happened to the rest of his pack. He cannot do that in the wilds of Europe as a wolf, so he becomes a man again. He finds Dernier first, back home with his family. It has been two years since the end of the war, and if Dernier seems to smile less than he remembers, he is happy enough. He tracks Falsworth next, who has also returned home. He watches from afar as Falsworth holds an infant, laughing with a woman, and he is glad.

For the rest, he must travel across the ocean, so he sneaks aboard a cargo ship and curls up in an out-of-the-way corner as the wolf.

As the ship docks, he leaps onto the deck and runs, ignoring the men shouting. Once he is far enough away, he shifts back to the man, acquires clothing, and determines the location: Alexandria, Virginia. From there, he finds Dugan, Stark, and Carter, all alive and well, working tirelessly for the SSR.

Morita, he knows, would have gone home to Fresno, and Jones back to New York. Since Fresno is a continent away, he tracks down Jones. Jones, like the rest, is happy with his family, and he turns away as Jones glances in his direction. His hair as a man is longer than he remembers wearing it, and he has ceased shaving because he knows that Barnes is known to be dead, (_Steve_ knew about the wolf, but Steve is dead, too, and the wolf whines) and he sees Jones straightening up, so he unhurriedly walks away.

After he leaves Jones, he finds his younger sisters. They live with their great-aunt, a woman he once knew well, but he cannot remember her name. They are women now and he leaves them be; he has been dead for years and will not interrupt their lives.

He slowly makes his way west and another year turns, and he is there when Morita's wife gives birth to a son. All of the pack are alive and well, living their lives, and he – what does he have? He has an empty grave and posthumous honors, and a wolf.

The happiest days of his life are long in the past and he goes north to Canada, where the wolves are.

Bucky Barnes died when he fell from a train. What survived was not a man. And now that he knows the pack is safe, he lets the wolf have control.

.

It isn't until aliens attack New York that Bucky Barnes emerges. The wolf cannot read, but he does recognize pictures, and his eyesight is still as sharp as it was as a sniper's, a bleed-through he has never minded. (The wolf has the man's eyesight; the man has the wolf's hearing. The wolf has part of the man's intelligence, enough that he would redefine what biologists know if they ever tried to study him; the man has the wolf's hardiness, and it was only enhanced further by what was done to him by Hydra.)

Captain America is on the cover of a camper's newspaper, and at the shock, he shifts back into a man to read the accompanying words: CAPTAIN AMERICA ALIVE.

Steve is alive.

_Steve is alive_.

Steve is alive and probably in DC, and it has been so long –

He does not return to the woods. He bathes and pickpockets and heads southeast, relearning humanity as he goes. He is handsome and charming and while a great deal has changed, many things have not.

He learns that nearly 70 years have passed since he fell from the train. He learns that Steve was frozen for all of it. He learns that aliens are real, and that the world was invaded; the invasion was defeated by Captain America, Tony Stark (Howard's son), a giant green beast, an alien prince (different kind of alien), and two unknowns. As he travels, he researches Captain America's team as well he can. Information is so easy to find, now. His favorite part of the present is definitely the internet.

In the aftermath of the invasion, Captain America has stayed in New York, helping with the clean-up. Stark has funded much of the repairs, and the alien prince has returned home. The green beast and the unknowns have disappeared from the public eye.

Bucky Barnes died when he fell from a train. That is an identity he does not reclaim as he travels. He uses _James_, a common enough name, and his hair is longer than Bucky ever wore it, and he lets a small beard grow.

He senses others as he travels, passing through various territories, but he never lingers long and his years in the wild have given him a fearsome scent. He is no longer tame, and he has a mission, and the shifters scattered throughout the country leave him alone.

His mother had been a lone wolf, his father a human. His sisters were human, and so are their children and grandchildren, from what the internet tells him. Rebecca, Julia, and Olivia – Livy is the only one still alive, but they each have children and grandchildren spread out across the world. After he sees Steve, maybe he'll track them down, just to make sure they're safe.

The wolves leave him alone, but one of the crows shadows him from Minnesota to Iowa and he waits until they've both exited the bus to challenge her.

"What do you want?" he demands in the deserted parking lot.

She shrugs. "You're different," she says. "I was curious, is all."

He bears his teeth at her and she holds up her hands, and doesn't follow as he catches the next bus. Hopefully she returns to her territory and leaves him alone. He takes more care to mask his trail after that.

.

Steve is still in New York, for the moment, according to social media. (Google Alerts are wonderful, as is twitter.) He poses for pictures and signs anything people want signed, and while he's more than happy to talk about the Battle of New York, he doesn't mention the past much. (He's been given input into a display at a museum, and it caused quite a firestorm because politics. James smirked at some of the 'quotes' attributed to Steve.)

James stalks Steve for three days before approaching. He doesn't look much like a dog but body language is important and if he acts like a harmless puppy most people leave him alone after offering pets. Steve is on his daily jog through Brooklyn and the wolf joins him, trotting at his heels. Steve grins at him before he falters, blinking.

It has been a long time since the wolf ran beside Steve Rogers; for the wolf, it has been lifetimes. For Steve… he woke up six months ago, and he went to sleep three days after Bucky fell. (Goddamned punk.)

"Bucky?" he whispers, staring at the wolf.

It is barely dawn. There are few people around, and those who are have their own business. So the wolf shifts into the man and Steve pulls him into a desperate hug, and _Bucky_ clings just as tightly.

.

Captain America does not finish his jog that morning. He does, however, adopt a stray Husky-Malamute mix, and then he falls off the radar for awhile. Most people are content to let him have his privacy; he deserves it after saving the world twice.

.

Steve Rogers met Jimmy Barnes on a bright April afternoon. Jimmy had just turned seven; Steve would that summer. Three boys were tormenting a sick dog and Steve could not abide it. Jimmy came across three boys beating Steve into the ground and he ended that right quick.

It would be a year before Bucky showed Steve the wolf, but Steve was part of Bucky's pack from the moment their eyes met.

.

Bucky Barnes never became the Winter Soldier, but other weapons were made.

Steve Rogers does not go on missions for SHIELD because he has more important things in his life than losing himself in what he knows.

However, when Black Widow contacts him about a shady project called Insight, he decides maybe it's time to return to the world.

Bucky returns with him, shadowing his steps, howl in the air.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: you scout the road ahead and I will watch your back

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Richard Siken

Warnings: AU during Captain America 1; mentions of death/torture/violence/suicidal actions

Pairings: Steve/Bucky

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 2060

Point of view: third

Prompt: Did Steve ever get a lecture from Bucky for his crash landing in the ice? What did Steve do during those last 18 months before Project Insight? What does the other Avengers think of Steve's new 'pet'?

* * *

><p>"I didn't know," Steve confesses, face buried in Bucky's fur. "I couldn't – you fell a thousand feet into a blizzard, and I couldn't, I just <em>left you there<em>." He's sobbing, arms wrapped around Bucky. "I left you there and everyone said you were dead, and I – " Words finally fail him and he cries himself into an exhausted slumber.

In the morning, Bucky throws together a breakfast of toast and fruit, and stares at Steve silently until Steve starts eating it. As the toast turns to ash in Steve's mouth, Bucky tells him, "I wouldn't have survived if Zola hadn't done whatever he did. By all rights, I _shouldn't_ have survived."

When Steve goes to say something (no idea what), Bucky shakes his head sharply, so Steve keeps quiet. "You had no way of knowing, Steve. And if you hadn't stopped Schmidt…" He shrugs. They're quiet for a few minutes as Steve finishes his breakfast, and then Bucky asks, "I would like to know, though, why you put that plane down without escaping. And don't lie that you couldn't."

Steve looks down at his empty plate. "You were dead," he murmurs. "I didn't want to live in a world without you." He can't look up at Bucky.

Bucky reaches across the table to take his hand. His fingers rest on Steve's pulse and they sit in silence until Bucky says, "I lost myself in the wolf because you were gone. I understand." He squeezes Steve's wrist and Steve curls his hand up to grip Bucky.

Steve doesn't know what to say, but Bucky suggests, "Let's go back to bed," so that's what they do, curling up together like when they were boys, back when life was simple.

…

Wolves are survivors, adaptable to almost anything. So are humans. What Zola did simply made Bucky able to survive a whole lot more. Without it, even the wolf would've died in those mountains. Shifters have an average life span of about a century, barring accidents. Bucky should've died in the Canadian wilderness as a wolf – but Zola again. He didn't age at all in all that time, so he has no idea how long his life is, now. He didn't even notice the time passing, or the packs that grew and died around him.

He didn't notice until time restarted because the wolf saw Steve's picture. Much of the world is different, but he's adaptable. He's survived this long – but it's not until he's on the way to New York that he starts to _live._

...

They wander. Steve tells SHIELD not to call him, doesn't pick up when the phone rings, lets his hair grow out, stops shaving. Bucky spends days as the wolf before shifting back to spend days as the man. They have no plan, no endgame, nothing to do except whatever they want. They live off Steve's back-pay and they see the world they've both died to save.

They spend a week walking through the surf at the Gulf of Mexico, then a week traveling north so they can wander over the plains. They both appreciate the heat because they spent too long feeling cold, and they head back southwest because Steve's never touched the Pacific and Bucky doesn't remember much of California. They discover the new world together, the food and technology and language; it's Bucky's google alert on Steve that lets them know they're being tracked, people posting pictures of Steve's adventures with his dog (or that guy he's with, though nobody's figured out his identity yet).

Bucky keeps watch on the forums and chatrooms about "Captain America's Epic Quest to Find Himself," even though Steve says he's already found himself, gaze warm on Bucky.

After they've visited every one of the lower 48, Bucky leads the way to what had been his territory for six decades. He shifts into the wolf and shows Steve every piece of ground. The packs hang back, unsure of Bucky, and definitely wary of Steve, and they stay away from the hiking trails and campgrounds.

Steve's slouched at the foot of a tree, Bucky sprawled over his lap and napping, when he gets a text from Natasha: _World in danger :( call me_. He sighs heavily enough to wake Bucky and calls her while Bucky sits up, ears flicking forward.

.

According to Natasha, no one can be trusted but time is of the essence - so Steve calls Stark and asks for his help. A jet is waiting at the closest airport within the hour. Bucky stays as the wolf because dogs are consistently underestimated and nobody thinks about talking around them. Stark, Natasha, and Fury meet them at a landing strip that's not on any record so that Steve can be filled in.

Bucky growls when they hear _Hydra,_ pressing in close to Steve's thigh. Natasha eyes him warily, glancing back at Steve, but Steve just gives her a tight-lipped smile. His fingers are gentle as he rubs Bucky's ear, listening to the horror story Stark and Fury tell: Hydra has grown inside SHIELD since the beginning.

"There's something big happening," Stark says, "and if Fury had told me –"

"It was need to know," Fury interrupts with a glare. "And you didn't."

Stark shakes his head, flinging his hands out. "And look what happened, Nick! Project Insight should _never_ have gotten this far!"

"If one of you fellas could fill me in?" Steve says mildly, fingers still on Bucky's head. Natasha's eyes keep going back to him, but Bucky's eyes are closed, head resting on Steve's thigh.

Stark fills him in. It's all Steve can do not to lose his temper, but his voice is firm and cold when he says, "We're burning it all down."

Fury argues, but Stark doesn't bother, and when Fury turns to Natasha for help, she shrugs. "Maybe a controlled burn is what we need," she says.

"Well, glad that's settled," Stark says. "Cap, you're stayin' with me. I suppose the mutt's welcome, too. Is he house-trained?"

.

"Jarvis will take care of the dog," Stark tells Steve. "What's his name?"

"Wolfie," Steve answers with a small grin.

Stark eyes Bucky for a few seconds before saying, "Right, of course. Moving on."

He gives them an abbreviated tour, showing Steve the entire floor that's to be his, and then Jarvis says, "Sir, Dr. Banner is requesting your presence in his lab."

"Tell 'im I'll be right there, J," Stark says, turning towards the elevator. "Cap, we're getting the band back together, you'll hear all about it at dinner, Jarvis'll show you where the food is," and then he's spewing a bunch of technobabble at Jarvis and Steve just sighs as the elevator doors close.

Bucky huffs at him and pads away to the living area, where he flops onto the couch.

…

"I know that you're not a dog," the woman says the next morning. Bucky had heard her coming long before she entered the room, so he watches her step in. Her hands are in plain sight and she's purposefully maintaining non-threatening body language.

He doesn't move or react, but the woman smiles. "I was taught by a cat," she says, "after I escaped the ones who made me. She was formidable and I hope to do her proud." She waits a moment but Bucky still ignores her. "I don't know where Steve found you," she says, "but I know that he trusts you. I'll reserve judgment for now." She nods, turns, and leaves.

Bucky rolls over and goes back to sleep.

.

Bucky goes to every meeting with Steve, listens as Steve's team uncover ever more secrets. It's too late to stop Project Insight – the World Security Council overruled Fury's objections and then suspended him when he tried to derail the thing anyway. Secretary Pierce, Fury's superior, is definitely Hydra, and so are maybe half of SHIELD's agents.

"We are so fucked," Stark mumbles as he delves deeper into the records, and nobody responds.

Steve's team is full of agents and doctors, active and former military, and an alien. Everyone from his previous team, the ones who beat back the alien invaders, are present. Everyone Stark lets into his tower is trustworthy. Not that Bucky trusts anyone but Steve.

Bucky watches the woman (_Natasha Romanoff_, they all call her, but that's not quite right), looking for the cat in her. It's there – she's too graceful to be entirely human, but she's also not a shifter. She sits as still as a cat, smiling with her eyes, and she's as deadly.

He hadn't intended to reveal the man but then Steve demands, "What the fuck?" and starts shouting about Zola in a long string of curses across four languages. Fury, Stark, and Coulson all try to explain, but the explanations only incense him further. Bucky hasn't seen him this mad since the Red Skull's massacre of prisoners, trying to capture Captain America. No one else alive has ever seen Steve so enraged and the stench of fear fills the room.

Steve Rogers is always beautiful in Bucky's eyes, and maybe it's the wolf in him, but he likes Steve in a temper.

However, it is counter-productive, this time. So Bucky rises to his feet as a wolf and then keeps rising as he shifts to the man, and he says simply, "Steve."

Steve stills while everyone else freaks the fuck out, pointing weapons at him, demanding to know where he came from (and, Stark, where his clothes are). Bucky ignores them, watching Steve turn around. "He killed you, Bucky," Steve says, "and they let him rebuild Hydra in the heart of the place we died for."

Bucky says, "I'm alive, Steve. We both are."

Stark says, "Holy fuck, _Bucky Barnes_?"

.

After everyone has calmed and Bucky has slipped into a pair of Steve's sweatpants and a t-shirt, the meeting resumes. Anytime Steve thinks of Zola, he tenses; Bucky grabs his hand, tangling their fingers. He has explained nothing to them, and Steve had ordered, "_Don't touch him_," when a few of Steve's team moved to apprehend him. Natasha's ease with his presence went a long way to soothing tempers, though Fury's glaring eye keeps coming back to him.

Maybe it's Bucky's smirk. He doesn't care.

"We're burning it all down," Steve says, "every part of it. We'll cut of every head and sear the stumps."

"Agreed," Stark says. "But first we have to stop Insight. Now, Hill has this neat idea –"

Bucky the man listens intently because he will be a part of it, guarding Steve's back. Bucky the wolf assesses the individuals spread out across the room: Fury, Coulson, Hill, Stark, Banner, Barton, Natasha, Thor, Carter, Potts, Rhodes, Simmons, May, Skye, Triplett, Fitz, and Peterson. May, Natasha, Banner, Thor, and possibly Peterson are the only ones he would have trouble taking down, should the need arise. Steve squeezes his hand; when Bucky glances at him, he shakes his head.

"Okay," Stark says as the meeting ends with a plan. "Can I ask now?"

Bucky looks at him. "Sure," he says. "I ain't answerin', though."

Stark frowns at him but Bucky just keeps smirking.

.

Three days of Stark trying to stalk Bucky in-between vanishing into the lab for hours later, everyone meets again to hammer out the last details. Rhodes leads another man in, announces, "This is Sam Wilson," and they all get down to work. Wilson keeps shooting Steve giddy looks of disbelief, but he has good ideas and raises good questions.

Two days after that, everyone departs for Washington DC solo or in small groups. They have a week to stop the launch.

.

"Go! Get out of here!" Steve shouts at Bucky right after ordering Hill to fire.

"No!" Bucky shouts back, a growl threading the words. "Not without you!"

They're trapped at opposite ends of the helicarrier and Steve succeeded in rerouting the systems, but his whole body hurts and he's barely conscious, and Bucky's limping as he tries to get closer. Bucky snarls and shifts, bulldozing his way through the two Hydra goons left alive, and then he shifts back, using what's left of his strength to scale the wall to Steve.

"Never without you, you idiot," he tells Steve, dragging him to his feet. "Now c'mon."

It's a long way down, but they land in the river together.


	5. Chapter 5

Title: you scout the road ahead and I will watch your back

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Richard Siken

Warnings: AU, of course.

Pairings: Steve/Bucky

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 540

Point of view: third

* * *

><p>There's something not quite right about Cap's - companion? dog? friend? Moving on, there's something not quite right about <em>Barnes,<em> and it's not just the fact that he should be _dead,_ that he _fell off a train going full speed in the mountains_ half a world away and 70 years ago.

After Project Insight is smithereens and most of the alphabet agencies the world over working together to pick off the remains of Hydra, Tony throws himself into research.

Fact 1: James Buchanan Barnes is not dead, all reports to the contrary.

Fact 2: James Buchanan Barnes can turn into a giant fucking wolf whenever he wants.

Fact 2a: The wolf is clearly far too intelligent to be a normal animal, but not quite as smart as Barnes when he looks like a man. Further observation needed (_good fuckin' luck,_ Tony scoffs to himself).

Fact 3: Cap is not surprised by anything Barnes says or does, whether wolf- or man-shaped.

Fact 4: Whether wolf- or man-shaped, the only person Barnes ever acknowledges is Steve Rogers.

Fact 5: If there is one man in the world that can turn into a wolf, there must be more.

Tony surfaces three days after diving into research with three suppositions:

Idea 1: That experimentation Hydra did on Barnes way back when was some crazy shit and turned him into a wolfman.

Idea 2: Timetravel to explain how he survived; see Idea 1 for the wolfiness.

Idea 3: Barnes was always a wolfman; see Idea 2 for how he's in the present.

Tony presents these Facts&Ideas to Steve with a flourish, trying not to look at the _giant wolf_ slumped across his lap. Seriously, Barnes in man-shape is about Steve's size, if not as bulky, which is still unfairly massive, really, but in wolf form he's freakishly large. His shoulder reaches just past Steve's hip, and he takes up a good half of the couch, and he's clearly ignoring Tony, not even bothering to laugh.

"Well, it makes sense," Steve says, rubbing at Barnes' wolf ears. Barnes huffs, slumping further onto Steve.

Tony doesn't get any more explanation than that. About a month after the helicarriers come down, Steve and his wolfman take their leave late one night with no goodbyes.

Tony's research, of course, has gone nowhere even though Barnes can't be the only one. What's worse is the way Romanoff and Barton keep laughing at him with their eyes and talking in code about birds and cats. (Literally: _bird_ and _cat_ are the only words he's been able to figure out.)

Then they're gone, too, and it's just Bruce, Pepper, and Tony. Coulson and his crew left right after, and Rhodey got Wilson reinstated with the Falcon program as a trainer, and with nothing else to do, Tony throws himself back into the clean energy initiative because there's more than one way to save the world.

It's always germinating in the back of his mind, though, and if Hydra could turn people into wolfmen, they'd have probably won decades ago.

So he was always a wolfman.

He's just finished the newest design for his armor when he gets it. "Are you fucking kidding me?" he says. "Of course he's a goddamned werewolf."


	6. Chapter 6

Title: you scout the road ahead and I will watch your back

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Richard Siken

Warnings: the Red Room and all that implies – mainly, bad things happening to children and talk of death/violence

Pairings: implied Natasha/Clint; Steve/Bucky

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 625

Point of view: third

* * *

><p>When Natasha leaves her creators (destroyed, burnt, shattered) behind, she vanishes into a large city and learns how to live. She does not know her age, does not yet have a name, will not be Natasha for thirty years. It is cold, that first night, and every night after. It is cold and she hungers, everything hurts.<p>

She dreams of her creators, her _masters,_ and she wakes with water on her face, fists clenched, her entire body curved into a protective huddle.

"Oh, kitten," she hears, on the cusp of falling back asleep.

Nobody has been able to sneak up on her in her entire memory, so she immediately goes on the attack.

She does not know her age and she does not have a name the day she meets Nicoletta.

Nicoletta, who laughs at every attempt the child Black Widow makes to grab her, to dodge, to flee; Nicoletta, who is faster and stronger than anyone the child Black Widow ever saw in her creators' grasp. Nicoletta, who wraps herself around the child Black Widow and murmurs a lullaby, a sound foreign to the child Black Widow, so she stills and listens.

Nicoletta, who says, "Come with me, kitten."

She is not yet Natasha; she goes.

.

"Can you make me like you?" the girl asks once.

The old cat shakes her head, purring a small laugh. "No, kitten," she says gently. "We are born. The bite is a myth only."

.

The girl Black Widow knows how to be efficient; she is a masterful weapon, learned through suffering and painful application of correction. Nicoletta teaches her to be graceful, beautiful, to find joy in smooth movements.

.

"Why?" the girl asks once.

The old cat grins without showing any teeth. "I've never had children, kitten. I'm reaching the end of my days, and I want to leave a mark on the world. And you –" She laughs and there's just the smallest hint of a roar in it. "What a mark you'll make."

.

Nicoletta dies early in the morning; she does not say goodbye. The girl Black Widow buries her beneath her favorite tree and vanishes into the city.

She knows how to live, now. But she needs to choose who to be.

.

Without guidance, she falls back on what she knows: violence and killing. She does make a mark on the world, but she is not entirely sure Nicoletta would be pleased with it.

For ten years, she climbs through the ranks of assassins. She destroys regimes, rewrites national borders, has a place in the history books that will never be associated with her name.

She can see the shifters, recognizes them; they shy away from her, for she is a cat and yet not. She is – unknown.

When the man finds her and says he was sent to kill her, he calls her a lioness instead of a spider. She listens to him.

He looks at her and sees her, in a way only an old cat ever has.

.

When he offers her a chance, she takes it. Despite what SHIELD was eventually revealed to be, she knows it is the second-best decision of her life.

.

Natasha names herself. She keeps Black Widow because of the history, because of the fear in powerful men's eyes when they hear it. But she chooses Natasha.

After SHIELD's fall, after the wolf and the captain take their leave, Natasha asks Clint if he'd like to meet the closest thing to a mother she ever had.

He says yes.

.

The tree is blooming. It has become massive in the nearly-forty years since she laid Nicoletta to rest.

"Thank you," she says, Clint standing quietly beside her. "You taught me to live."

They vanish into the city together.


End file.
